Noise
by xxaemiliusxx
Summary: Some very light angst/fluff Spades Slick/Diamonds Droog. Human(ish) AU with the Midnight Crew during the peak of their activity in Midnight City. An angry Slick is confronted and then comforted by moirail Droog after a failed heist.


Droog suspected the noise could be heard from across the city.

Sitting in the room next door, it was nearly deafening.

Slick had been bashing away at the piano from the moment he'd gotten into the building and slammed the door to the cesspool he called a room. There was a melody in his racket, to be sure, but it was so convoluted with rage-fueled pounding that it was easily lost every few counts. Droog wouldn't be surprised if Slick had chipped a few keys slamming them down with the metallic digits of his prosthetic hand.

Once he had changed from his bloodied suit to a clean set of nightclothes, Droog had been trying to read in his own quarters next door, figuring Slick would give up the manic playing at some point, but it had yet to happen. Elsewhere, Boxcars and Deuce were surely plugging their ears or trying to drown out the sound with something else, like gin. He almost considered doing so himself, but he was tired and testy and in some strange way he hated to dull this feeling of anger with alcohol. Cigarettes, on the other hand...

Droog's hands were nearly shaking when he lit up his third cigarette and slammed his book down on the bedside table beside him with more force than he'd intended. He threw himself out of bed and crossed to the doorway with the smoke trailing behind him, ready to put an end to this racket before it put him out of his mind.

He threw open the door in the hall next to his and stepped inside. Slick's living space was like a seedy newspaper photo of a crime scene, in living color. Old papers, impaled books, uncollected garbage, blood-soiled clothing, a few knives (some with broken blades, others with gore still dried on the edges). Droog stood in the doorway, staring at the centerpiece to it all, the bloody, bedraggled figure of the Midnight Crew's leader, hunched at his old piano, beating on the keys like they were themselves to blame for his foul temper.

"Slick."

The noise continued. Slick pressed a foot to the damper pedal so that the pounded notes rung and hung in the air, echoing over one another in tumultuous noise. Droog took a heavy drag on his cigarette and seethed the smoke out through his teeth. It wasn't often Slick summoned his anger this close to the surface. Though he was loathe to do so, he raised his voice above the racket:

"Slick!"

Still no response. Droog clenched his hand into a fist. With Slick's patched eye toward him, he couldn't tell if the mangy pianist was unnoticing or ignoring him. Either way, he wasn't putting up with this cachocophy for a moment longer.

 _"Jack."_

Silence fell in the room. Outside the window, the bustle of busy nightlife seemed far off and distant. Somewhere across the city, a police siren cut its way through the streets. Slick lifted his face slowly from the piano and met the gaze of his crewman just beneath the brim of his hat. His bloody nose had dried in rusty streaks across his lips and chin and cheek where he had wiped it. Droog regarded him in blessed silence, his eyes cool and patient once more.

Without a word, Slick's hand flew to his coat and his shoulder drew back as he hurled a concealed blade across the room at the other man's face.

Droog never batted an eye as the knife _swished_ past his ear and _thunked_ into the open door behind him. He lifted a hand to his lips and took a long drag on his cigarette before letting the smoke drift out in a lazy breath that bumped and billowed around the brim of his hat. "Feel better?" he asked dryly.

"No," Slick spat, turning his eye back on his piano with a glare. His hands found their way back to the keys before him and quietly worked their way into an ambling, melancholy tune. At least it was softer now. So soft, in fact, that Droog could hear the clicks of Slick's right hand as his prosthetics connected with the keys.

Droog crossed the room slowly, stepping over Slick's blood-stained horse hitcher and a pile of oily rags, and and took a seat on the bench beside his associate, his back to the piano on which Slick's fingers meandered.

Droog crossed one leg over the other and rested his cigarette hand on his knee. "Your interaction with that dame is gettin'...troublesome."

Slick continued playing. "She ain't no _dame_."

"Just like you ain't no Spades Slick."

The music stopped. Slick's fingers hovered over the keys as the last note he'd struck still rung in the air. Droog glanced over his shoulder at him, but Slick had hunched forward again, and his good eye was on his other side.

Slick grit his teeth, his scar contorting his stubbled skin. "You know that ain't what I meant," he growled. "I meant she's a huge bi-"

"The dame's a queen." Droog took another drag on his cigarette.

Slick shot him a dangerous glare, his mouth twisted in a sneer. "She ain't no goddamn queen no more. What the hell're you defendin' her for?"

Droog didn't meet his eyes, gazing languidly at a tangle of bloody sheets at the far end of the room. What-or who-was wrapped up inside them, he hadn't the energy to inquire about. "Who said I was defending her?" he asked coolly. "I'm just trying to _remind_ you who it is you're screwing around with. Y'can't even blame her this time. It's your own fault you told her every move we were planning to make before we made it."

Slick jerked rigidly upright on the bench, turning to Droog in a wild-eyed fury. "That _bitch_ put something in my drink!"

"Yeah," Droog said, lifting his cigarette. "Liquor."

Slick slammed a fist down on the keyboard with a burst of cacophonous noise. _"FUCK YOU, DROOG!"_

Droog turned toward him slowly. The moment the other man's cool eyes were on him, Slick faltered, the rage giving way to the briefest flicker of guilt, soon replaced by embarrassed regret. His face flushed and he turned back toward the keyboard again, returning his good eye to the keys. His fingers brushed their ivory surfaces, but the music had all gone out of him. After a moment of watching him, Droog turned away again, looking toward the window now, where the slivered moon hung suspended in a deep green sea of stars.

"...how's yer arm?" Slick muttered.

"Barely a scratch."

"Lucky bastard..."

Droog hummed somewhat disinterestedly, stealing a glance at the other man's metallic fingers, gleaming in the moonlight as they rested silently atop the ivory keys. "Real shame about the suit though," he murmured absently. "Only decent tailor in this town's busy runnin' around with the wrong crew..."

Slick was silent beside him.

Somewhere, jazz was playing softly over the cityscape, a familiar song whose title Droog couldn't place. A record on a phonograph, likely, based on the tinny quality of the sound. It was being played not far away, maybe even finding its way in through another open window in the building. Maybe it was Boxcars. Maybe Deuce.

Droog stood up, dropping his cigarette butt to the floor and stubbing it out with the toe of his shoe. In the outrageous disaster that was Slick's living quarters, it would hardly be noticed. He reached out and gave the other man a gentle rap on the back with the heel of his hand. "C'mon."

Slick turned slightly to his left but when he found he couldn't see Droog any longer, he twisted around on the bench in the other direction so that he could face him better. Droog was standing over him behind the bench, extending a hand to him as though in offering of a handshake. He was giving Slick the same unreadable stare that somehow seemed permanently established on his features.

"What?" Slick grumbled, lowering his chin and peering at Droog from just beneath the brim of his hat again.

Droog nodded to his hand.

"Hell no."

Droog frowned. "I ain't listening to you hammering on them keys and embeddin' knives in the wall all night. Get off your ass."

Slick stared daggers at the other man, clutching the edge of the piano bench with both hands till the knuckles on left hand went white. "You ain't the boss of me. The Midnight Crew is _my_ operation, y'hear that, Droog?"

"We all got our parts to play," Droog said soberly, still watching Slick with the same calm cool stare as always.

Slick's face reddened ever so slightly in the shadow of his hat. Then he stood up sharply, swatting Droog's offered hand aside with his robotic one and stepping close to swing his arms around the other man. The embrace was so sudden and so without caution that Slick sent his own hat tumbling backwards off his head when he pressed his face into Droog's shoulder.

Droog drew a slow breath and the scent of Slick's hair pomade filled his nose. It was a familiar smell; comforting, somehow, in its permanence. It reminded him of the early days, when Midnight City was still in its infancy, and the promise of a new beginning still held its novelty over them.

He let his arms fall gently around the other man's back as Slick pressed his face into his shoulder, always favoring the blind side, pressing his scarred and ragged flesh against Droog's night shirt.

"You're crushin' my cigarettes," Droog muttered halfheartedly.

"Don't know why you're still smokin' those damn things anyway…"


End file.
